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Synopsis

Alexander the Corrector: the Tormented Genius who Unwrote the Bible

The bizarre and fascinating story of Alexander Cruden, compiler of Cruden's Concordance- a 2.5 million word dictionary of quotations and gazeteer to the Bible, four times longer than the Bible itself, which remains in use to this day, nearly 300 years later.

Despite the magnitude of his achievement, Alexander Cruden is remembered less for his mighty work than for the widespread belief he was mad. Cast into a lunatic asylum as a young man following a scandal considered too shocking to reveal, his life presents an odd juxtaposition of biblical scholarship and the spectres of intrigue, incest and insanity. Subsequent generations have accepted the diagnosis of Cruden as mad. But Julia Keay has at last uncovered the scandal, revealing the true (though no less tragic) story of his repeated incarcerations, and restoring the reputation of this lonely and misunderstood genius.

"Extremely well-written, sensitive, moving and judicious" Sunday Telegraph

" A perfectly lovely book by a biographer of rare talent" Simon Winchester